


Five Things About Stella That Ray Didn’t Expect, Even Though He Probably Should Have

by Wagnetic



Category: due South
Genre: 5 Things, F/M, M/M, Stella Appreciation Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 13:30:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1512326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wagnetic/pseuds/Wagnetic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stella appreciation fic, because she's really pretty great and doesn't get enough love. There's a mention of Fraser and Ray K as a couple at the end, but Stella's definitely the main focus here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things About Stella That Ray Didn’t Expect, Even Though He Probably Should Have

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Seascribe for beta'ing despite a super busy schedule. I owe you one!

1\. She became his best friend.

Ray didn’t expect to see her again after the robbery because you sure as hell don’t make a good impression on a girl by pissing your pants in front of everybody. Then again, Stella wasn’t really like anybody he’d ever met, and even after seeing him make an idiot of himself, she liked him. Maybe she even liked him better because of it. She was weird like that. But since she liked him, they started to spend time together. Ray would bike over to her place after school, and even though her neighborhood felt wrong, like somebody stuck a bunch of life-sized dollhouses together, it was worth it to see her. Sometimes they’d listen to records or watch TV, and sometimes Stella would help him with his homework since she was always better at that stuff than he was. Most of the time they’d dance.

It was Stella’s idea to take up ballroom dancing, and at first Ray didn’t want to do it because dancing was for girls, but in the end she won him over. He even saved up his money to take classes with her, and he learned that he loved everything about it. Ray loved the rhythm, and the motion that went with it, and the way they knew each other perfectly when they danced. Sometimes he didn’t understand her too well, when she used those big words she liked or when she talked about her family, which was so different from his, but when they were dancing he knew everything he needed to know.

And the more time Ray spent with her, the more he learned to trust her. It didn’t come easily to him, but Stella never looked down on him when he got his face messed up by the other kids at school, even when her parents gave him funny looks. Ray could tell her when his parents were disappointed in his grades at school or when his dad yelled at him. Stella never hid him from her other friends either, even though they all wore nice clothes and went to fancy schools and most of them would never have considered being friends with a gangly, dorky, poor kid like Ray. Most of them put up with him and the ones who didn’t like him got The Look from Stella and that shut them up. Nobody had a Look like Stella’s.

The first time Stella called him her best friend, Ray had no idea what to say. He couldn’t believe his luck, that she would really choose him out of everyone she knew. In the end though, he didn’t have to say anything because she knew it all already so he just grinned at her like a moron, and she grinned right back.

 

2\. She had a wild side, and she was tougher than anyone.

In the early days before Ray really knew her, he only saw her as the pretty Gold Coast girl. Once they were friends he learned that wasn’t anywhere near all that she was, but it wasn’t until they were in high school that Ray really saw her let all that proper stuff go. Maybe it was the whole teenage rebellion thing that let her do it, or maybe she just got sick of it all, but whatever it was, it was great. They still went ballroom dancing but they also snuck out to dance in the clubs that wouldn’t check them for IDs. Stella wore a leather jacket and a black mini skirt with tall boots or a pair of ripped up jeans with plain sneakers and she always looked so different from that tidy, polite girl she had to be during the day. They were at one of those clubs the first time she kissed Ray, high on the music, and the dancing, and the thrill of breaking all the rules, and if he hadn’t been in love with that side of Stella before, he sure would have fallen for it then.

Ray missed that side of her later, when she went from the rebellious punk kid to the sharp professional, but that toughness never went away. He saw it all the time: when she set her heart on being a lawyer and wouldn’t let anyone talk her out of it, and when she wouldn’t let anybody call her “sweetheart” once she got the job, and in the way she stayed cool and calm at work and only let all that frustration out at home so nobody at the office could use it against her. He saw it again when she told him it was over. Ray didn’t think of it that way at the time. He was just hurt and angry and lost and he wanted her back, but later on he got how much strength it took.

 

3\. She knew he was queer and she didn’t care.

Ray told her at the same club where she’d kissed him for the first time. It was the one thing he hadn’t ever got up the guts to tell her, but he knew he would have to do it eventually and that night they were both a little drunk and shouting over the music to hear each other, and without letting himself think too hard about it just blurted out, “Sometimes I fantasize about blowing Steve McQueen.”

She just gave him a look and said, “Yeah, I figured that one out a while ago, Ray.”

“But, um, not it’s not just McQueen.”

Stella rolled her eyes this time. “It’s not like I don’t notice how you look at other guys, you know.”

Ray had been expecting some kind of reaction, not disgust or anything, because this was Stella, but he thought she’d be a little weirded out or at least surprised. “It really doesn’t bother you?” he asked.

She just shook her head and said, “Of course not. That’s how you are, and I like you how you are,” like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Now come on, let’s dance.”

So Ray let her tug him over to the middle of the room and drag him around until he got his rhythm back, and then she stood up on her tiptoes until her mouth was right by his ear and said, “You’ll have to tell me about those fantasies later,” seductive as hell, and it turned out that she really, really liked hearing all about them and man, telling her was the best decision he ever made.

  

4\. She divorced him.

It wasn’t so much that Ray didn’t know it was coming than that he didn’t want to see it, wouldn’t see it right until she handed him the papers. And sure, the problem that he told people about was that he wanted kids and she didn’t, but that wasn’t all of it. Stella wasn’t the punk kid anymore, and she wasn’t the sweet little Gold Coast girl she used to be—well, had looked like—anyway. She grew up into this sleek, businesswoman type, and she was busy all the time, and sure, they’d always been from totally different worlds, but now it was by choice, because Ray was a cop and Stella was a lawyer. She got tired after a day of work, of fending off the assholes in the office, and she needed her space. And Ray, he needed her. Needed her time and her attention, and he couldn’t stop pestering her about it, and the more she backed away, the more he pressed. And yeah, he knew it was only making it worse, but he was so damn scared to lose her. Even in bed, he held her so tight that she’d roll away from him to the edge of the bed. “Ray, stop grabbing me. I need to sleep,” she’d say, and he’d just lie there and miss her even though he was right there.

When Stella left him, she told him that she loved him and that she’d always love him and Ray had wanted to say, “Then why can’t you stay?” but he knew it already. Because he wanted the kind of family where she could be there with him all the time, and she needed the kind of life where she could focus on her career without a husband nagging at her all the time. He got it, and it didn’t make it a bit easier. Ray loved her with everything he had, and it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t give her what she needed.

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “We just grew apart. You have to know that I don’t blame you.” Stella knew him so well. She knew exactly what was going on in his head after all these years, just like she’d known when they were the best friends they weren’t anymore, and even that wasn’t enough.

“We were meant for each other, Stella,” he’d said. Stupid, stupid. It was pathetic and desperate and he still couldn’t stop himself from saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time.

“Ray.” And her voice was soft but there was no give in it. “Maybe we were once, but we’re not now.”

  

5\. After all that, she’s happy for him.

Ray put her through a hell of a lot—he can admit that now. All the pestering, and yeah, basically stalking, and the begging and getting in her way when she was just wanted her own life already, and she still congratulates him and Fraser and even comes to the ceremony. When she sees him, she looks him in the eye with that same smile she used to give him when they were kids out dancing. Stella looks beautiful, if a little ridiculous standing there with Vecchio, but then again, she probably looked a little ridiculous with him too, back when they were together. She always had weird taste, right from the start. She doesn’t hug Ray or anything, but he doesn’t need her to. Yeah, he still loves her, but not in the same way he used to. All he wants from her is her forgiveness, and somehow she can give him that. Generous Stella.

“I’m so glad for you, Ray,” she says, and he can tell that she means it. She isn’t just relieved that all the shit he did is finally over with, and she would have had every right to be, but she’s really happy that he’s happy. “It wasn’t me,” she says, “but I knew there was someone for you.” She grins at him and says, “It took you a while to figure it out, but I had a feeling it was Fraser, too.” And yeah, she probably did, because Stella knows him perfectly even now.


End file.
